Broadway Training, Gangnam Style

When most Americans think of Korean pop music, colloquially called K-pop, what comes to mind is usually Psy’s “Gangnam Style” — a high-octane fusion of rap verses, techno beats and pop hooks, complete with an ultrabright music video and hypersynchronized dance moves. But the playwright Jason Kim is hoping to change that.

“There’s a desire to look at K-pop as goofy and strange and funny,” Mr. Kim said, referring to that 2012 crossover hit. “What’s so wonderful is that it’s incredibly diverse — there’s very serious K-pop and there’s very goofy and funny K-pop.”

This month, he is helping to introduce New York theatergoers to the varieties of the genre with the world premiere of a musical called “KPOP.” Mr. Kim co-conceived and wrote the book for the immersive show, which opens on Sept. 22 at A.R.T./New York Theaters, in a coproduction by Ars Nova,Ma-Yi Theater Company and Woodshed Collective.

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Jiho Kang is a member of the 18-person cast.CreditVincent Tullo for The New York Times

Though Mr. Kim was a writer on HBO’s “Girls” and his play “The Model American” ran this summer at the Williamstown Theater Festival, “KPOP” is his first major New York theater production. The cast is massive — 18 people, 17 of them Asian, a rarity in the American theater world. “The fact that we’re trying to make a show with not only one Asian person, but with 17 — I can’t believe it,” he said.

In South Korea, where K-pop is a billion-dollar industry, solo artists and bands are created in a manner not dissimilar to the old Hollywood studio system. Aspiring singers learn how to sing and dance, and their personas are crafted by their record labels. They can train for up to 15 years before they even step onto a stage.

“KPOP” aims to give the audience a firsthand look at such hit factories. Ticket-buyers will get to tour a two-floor complex and watch as singers practice dance moves, construct an album, are evaluated by their labels and try to make themselves more palatable to American listeners. It culminates in a concert, with songs in both Korean and English. Helen Park and Max Vernon wrote the music and lyrics.

Not every audience member will have the same experience or encounter the same characters. So here’s a chance to meet six “KPOP” performers. And true to the art form, some are experienced, others are novices, and not all of them are Korean.

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Jason Tam, who doesn’t speak Korean, learned his songs by sounding them out.CreditVincent Tullo for The New York Times

Jason Tam

PORTRAYS Epic, a performer in the five-member boy band F8 (pronounced “fate”). Half-Korean, half-American, he was brought in “to make the band viable in America,” said Mr. Tam, causing tensions with his bandmates, who are all Korean.

INSPIRED BY Justin Timberlake and Exo, a boy band that performs in Korean and Mandarin.

KOREAN? No. Mr. Tam is Chinese, Hawaiian and Caucasian. He learned the Korean songs in the show by recording himself on his iPhone and “listening and adjusting accordingly.”

PREPARATION A weeklong cast boot camp, eight-hour days that included body conditioning, “swag” exercises and learning four songs a day. “There’s a lot of drilling, more than in regular musical theater,” said Mr. Tam, who has been on Broadway in “A Chorus Line,” among other shows. “They make it look so easy, but it takes so much blood, sweat and tears that you don’t see.”

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Jinwoo Jung portrays a member of the boy band F8.CreditVincent Tullo for The New York Times

Jinwoo Jung

PORTRAYS Oracle, a member of F8 who objects to the group’s attempts to be more “Americanized.”

INSPIRED BY The chance to pursue a lifelong dream. “K-pop was something I always yearned for and I was never brave enough to reach out to,” he said, citing the rigorous training. He became an actor instead.

KOREAN? Yes; Mr. Jung was born in South Korea and moved to the United States five years ago.

PREPARATION Watches videos of live performances by Big Bang, a K-pop boy band, before he goes on: “I always want to have their attitude.”

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Deborah Kim, center, plays a rapper in the girl group Special K.CreditVincent Tullo for The New York Times

Deborah Kim

PORTRAYS XO, a member of the six-member girl group Special K. “She’s the rapper, like a bad bitch,” Ms. Kim said.

INSPIRED BY For her “KPOP” audition, Ms. Kim performed a Korean rap from the song “Fan” by the male hip-hop trio Epik High. “I really liked that I was cast as the rapper, because that’s something I’m interested in.”

APPEAL OF THE SHOW It has made her realize that “being something-hyphen-American is its own identity and culture — very beautiful and also very real.”

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“KPOP” marks Sun Hye Park’s first performance in a stage musical.CreditVincent Tullo for The New York Times

Sun Hye Park

PORTRAYS Callie, a member of Special K who is told that she needs to lose her accent in order to be more marketable to Americans.

INSPIRED BY Girls’ Generation, the eight-member girl group.

KOREAN? Yes; Ms. Park was born in South Korea and moved to the United States five years ago.

PREPARATION This is the first time Ms. Park has performed in a musical. “I’m not really a singer and I’m not really a dancer,” she said. “Every day, every night, when I’m back home, I always rehearse in front of the mirror.” It’s been illuminating: “I never thought about K-pop stars as really performers. Because they are always being pretty and sexy, like dolls. But singing and dancing and being pretty and everything — it’s so hard!”

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Ashley Park comes to “KPOP” after more traditional roles in more traditional Broadway productions.CreditVincent Tullo for The New York Times

Ashley Park

PORTRAYS MwE, a solo artist who at 26 is considered too old to be a pop star.

INSPIRED BY Beyoncé (“I feel totally barbaric using Beyoncé in the same sentence as compared to myself!”) and BoA, a solo artist who sings both K-pop and J-pop (Japanese pop).

KOREAN? Yes, though born in California. “I’ve never been to Korea,” she said.

APPEAL OF THE SHOW After appearing on Broadway in “Sunday in the Park With George” and “The King and I,” she’s thrilled to be part of a show with a large Asian cast where race is incidental: “It’s very subversive in that you’re seeing all these human interactions and drama, and you forget everyone that you’re seeing is Asian.”

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Along with performing, Ebony Williams is the show’s dance captain.CreditVincent Tullo for The New York Times

Ebony Williams

PORTRAYS Jenn, a choreographer for Special K.

KOREAN? No. The only non-Asian cast member, Ms. Williams also does double duty as the dance captain for “KPOP.”

APPEAL OF THE SHOW Ms. Williams was a dancer on Beyoncé’s Formation world tour. “As an African-American woman, the struggles are so similar,” she said. “A lot of the things that they’re doing in order to be perfect — changing their faces and having surgeries and things like that — it’s so relevant here in America. There’s such a similarity in cultures, even though there’s so many differences at the same time.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page AR9 of the New York edition with the headline: Behind the Scenes at a K-Pop Factory. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe